In late May, HIBCC applied for an additional issuing agency code (IAC) with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), augmenting the code already assigned and used in conjunction with our Netherlands-based HIBCC affiliate EuroHIBCC (EHIBCC). ISO is the network of the national standards institutes of some 157 countries and is the world’s largest developer and publisher of International Standards. As a CEN and ANSI accredited standards development organization, HIBCC is part of the ISO framework.

ISO notified HIBCC that its application meets the approval criteria set out in ISO/IEC 15459 – Information Technology – Unique Identification of Transport Units. In early June, HIBCC was assigned the designation “RH” as its IAC. This means that existing HIBCC labelers will now have the option of using the ANSI FACT Data Identifiers (DI) to provide a much larger data set for coding information in barcodes or RFID tags. HIBCC is in the process of harmonizing the ANSI FACT DI's with the Supplier Labeling Standard. In the future, the HIBCC Supplier Labeling Standard will detail the broad options available to suppliers.